


hell's kitchen, literally

by Anonymous



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: 4yrs with soonseok!!, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Attempt at Humor, Fluff and Crack, M/M, mingyu is a stressed mom 25/8, they're dummies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 01:26:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13112997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Mingyu’s gone for the day. Soonyoung and Seokmin are hungry. Do the math.Or: that one soonseok domestic au where they can’t cook for shit but they still do it anyway.





	hell's kitchen, literally

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Some content in this fic makes no logical sense and only provided for humor purposes.
> 
> P.S. I'm so sorry, this is horrid.

“What are we making today, Chef Lee?”

Soonyoung gets on his toes, hands reaching up to readjust the classic chef’s hat attribute that’s sliding down and currently covering half of Seokmin’s face.

“Well, Assistant Kwon,” Seokmin answers, “what would you like to eat, hm?” Soonyoung drops his hands on Seokmin’s shoulders as the younger leans back against the marbled kitchen counter, playful smiles gracing their features.

“What would you like to eat?”

“Anything you want.”

Soonyoung hums in feign-uncertainty for a moment. His decision is already final from the start but he just couldn’t let this frequent chance of having Seokmin smiling down at him with that nervous, hesitant, but honest grin go to waste; his hammering heart tells him so.

Soonyoung takes his time, playing with the black buttons attached on Seokmin’s chef’s whites attire he bought for him online. It looks super attractive on him, the money was, and still is totally worth it. He finally breaks and says, “Anything you’ll be cooking.”

The grin Seokmin has plastered on promptly softens into something more affectionate in a fraction of a second and he tugs Soonyoung closer by placing his arms around Soonyoung’s lower back.

“Something fried and rice-y then?” Soonyoung simply nods and Seokmin shoots him a quick knowing look before taking him by the hand towards the groceries-filled refrigerator. Thanks to a certain roommate.

“You think Mingyu will notice something’s missing?”

They exchange troubled expressions, exasperated ones, then burst out in booming laughter altogether. It’s pretty much just another way of saying their roommate is one hell of an oblivious fool.

 

 

“Eggs?”

“A must have.”

“Celery?”

“Sure!”

“This... yellow thing?”

Seokmin stops halfway from finally getting the carrot peeled— damn carrot won’t cooperate with his limited culinary skill— and looks down to where Soonyoung’s crouching in front of an open fridge, holding what seems to be a—

“Turmeric?”

Soonyoung just dumbly (but adorably) gapes and cocks his head to the side. “The hell’s a turmeric?”

A muttered ‘sounds like a disease’ goes unheard.

With a peeler in one hand and a half-naked carrot in the other, Seokmin gestures with a stern nod of his head towards the swaying, crooked-looking vegetable pinched between Soonyoung’s stubby fingers.

“Hyung, that thing you have. It’s called turmeric.” Soonyoung’s mouth forms an ‘o’ and he nods his head, grinning up with ease at Seokmin. “Aight, Chef, you’re the cook here.” And Seokmin smiles back, twice as bright, and just as lively as his.

“You can help me if you want.”

Soonyoung opens his mouth to reply but Seokmin beats him to it.

“No, actually, you should help me.” He lures out his hand towards Soonyoung, the carrot acting as a helping aid which, the older gladly accepts and pulls himself up with a light grunt.

But it doesn’t go too well since a bunch of ingredients that were previously infesting Soonyoung’s lap were now all scattered across the white tiles and Soonyoung may or may not be standing on the flowing yolk.

It takes a few moment of silence of them staring at the contaminated floor to register what just happened.

“On second thought,” Seokmin rubs the back of his head, looking extremely washed-off. “I don’t think eggs are necessary.”

Soonyoung moves closer to Seokmin, mostly to avoid the yolk from drowning his feet while wearing an identical look to Seokmin’s. “That tur-tur thing too.”

The fridge beeps, constantly beeping due to its door gasket being held opened for far too long to be deemed as proper and it’s honestly just another way of telling them to stop before things escalated.

 

 

Seokmin dusts off his pants, the one that’s sort of drenched with water and streaks of yellow vibrantly highlighted (courtesy of Soonyoung’s feet) and it’s the pair of pants he’s wearing right now. The complementary chef’s hat he has on droops forward as he opens the rice cooker and dips in, a load of steam welcomes his face and it has Seokmin clenching his eyes shut while grinning, before turning to his side with the said grin still plastered on.

“Mingyu cooked rice. We’re saved!”

Soonyoung’s slit-looking eyes double in size and the cluttering noise that follows through is the result of him dropping a knife onto a cutting board and an amateur-peeled carrot rolling down. His grin doubles in size too, competing with Seokmin’s.

“We should make porridges more often!”

Seokmin immediately agrees by saying, “More porridge for Mingyu, more rice for us.”

It’s an unforgettable memory of them trying to measure and cook rice and them making it into porridge instead and the look on their roommate’s face as he was greeted by six full bowls of porridge lining up for him will always have a special place in Seokmin’s heart.

Soonyoung high-fives Seokmin and then he glances at the piled up mess beside the fridge, grin faltering just a slight.

“So, who’s gonna take out the trash?” He asks.

They look at each other as if they’re communicating through direct eye-contact. And they break out into yet another wide grin and shrugs.

“Mingyu.”

 

 

They’ve peeled, they’ve sliced, and there’s already a whole rice-cooker of nicely cooked rice ready to be fry.

Seokmin stares at the two recently rinsed tomatoes in his hands, sleeves pulled up to avoid any water drenching accident again. He hugs them to his chest using the length of his arm as he turns off the sink. “Hyung, should we use soap?”

He only needs to crane his neck a bit to get a look at Soonyoung who’s propped on his elbows, palms squishing his own cheeks, making his own cheeks pressed and all bunched up, looking so, so cute.

There’s a long, drawn out hum resonating from Soonyoung’s throat and it raises a few octaves when Seokmin couldn’t help but to lean downward and lands a fleeting kiss onto the bridge of his nose. He scrunches his nose at the sudden act.

It seems like a regular thing for them— scratch that, it is a regular thing for them to just stare at each other for a significant while, exchanging looks and telepathic connections that always ends up with them nodding their heads at each other while wearing widening beams.  
“Soap them.” Soonyoung suddenly says. “Mingyu never stops complaining about us being slobs or whatever.”

Then the look in his eyes harden and his lips is suddenly pursed into a thin line as he stares back at Seokmin with full dedication. “Let’s prove him wrong.”

Seokmin is soon affected, his hand already gripping the lemon-scented dish soap and he squirts it out onto the tomatoes. This one is for Mingyu.

 

 

“This should be easy.” Seokmin mumbles to himself, a humongous bowl of rice hugged to his chest.

The stove and frying pan are already pre-heated and a spatula is placed beside a full-tupper of their choppy peeled and sliced carrots, plus two squeaky clean tomatoes. All Seokmin had to do was pour the rice in.

He heavily hesitates though. It’s his first time doing actual cooking instead of peeking over Mingyu’s high shoulder and getting a light smack on the head for distracting the latter, or mindlessly watching cooking channels.

Well, Worst Cooks in America probably— mostly doesn’t count so his culinary skills totally depend on Mingyu.

“Need any help with that, Chef?”

Seokmin, unthinking and out of shock, lets out what could be considered a screech, and because of his impulsive mind and body flex, the rice comes flying out of the bowl and flat out onto the awaiting pan and Soonyoung is just watching the whole scene unfolding before him from a safe distance.

“Huh. Guess not.”

Seokmin hovers a hand over his (thankfully) calming heart and wonders if this is how Mingyu feels all the time.

 

 

“So do we wait for it to fry or...?”

Soonyoung speaks up after awhile of solely watching Seokmin standing around without mind. It’s honestly an entertaining sight to watch; Seokmin in his oversized chef’s attire, baggy coat, baggy pants, and drooping hat while a blank look decorating his face. But Soonyoung usually finds literally everything the younger does entertaining so the warmth in his stomach is something he’s used to.

“Yeah, yeah, let it be.” Seokmin quickly waves him off, seemingly to already gotten off the frozen state he was in just seconds ago. “You know how usually fried rice has a darker shade, like, brown or something?”

Soonyoung raises his brow but nods along anyway. “Yeah?”

“And to create that color onto the rice—”

“We gotta let it fry!” He gleams in astonishment, mirroring the grin Seokmin has on.

“Exactly!”

Soonyoung shifts from his place against the plywood wall, and holds out a hand for Seokmin to take. His lips knowingly slope into a soft grin as slender fingers easily slip in-between his stubbier ones, the faint moles dotting Seokmin’s side of cheek are easy to make out at such close proximity.

It’s almost perplexing how often this has happened between them. This being the drastic change in the atmosphere hanging above.

“And then we can eat?” Soonyoung questions in a low tone, almost whispering and Seokmin answers with a gentle squeeze of their entwined hands. “Then we can eat.”

 

 

“Hey, hyung?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t laugh but,” Seokmin heaves a content sigh and smiles, hooking his chin over his crossed-arms on the table. Soonyoung is in front of him, separated by the said furniture and their legs lazily hooked under it. “I’m sort of proud of us.”

“We can totally survive without Mingyu.”

Soonyoung stares down at the large, airy white chef’s hat taking his full view, a smile threading loosely by his lips. “Yeah, we can.”

 

 

They’ve been doing absolutely nothing.

Just sitting across from each other while waiting for the rice to fry in utter silence.

That is, until Soonyoung has had it and drops his head on the table with a loud groan because apparently three minutes of not talking to Seokmin is borderline torture.

“Seokmin, I’m bored.” He audibly moans, lifting his head just enough to let the younger see the pout taking over his lips and the disgruntled knit of his brows. “And hungry. I’m bored and hungry.” Seokmin only laughs and reaches out to dishevel his fading bright orange-dyed locks. It’s turned a pale yellow-ish color now.

“Got anything you want to do, hyung?” Soonyoung shrugs at this and raises his head more and whines even more.

“I was hoping you’d come up with something, you always do, something like what we normally do, you know. Or something like, like... oh!”

One, long look at Soonyoung’s reversal of an expression; bright-eyed and a Cheshire-like grin as his eyes disappear into little crescents makes Seokmin loses his laughter bit by bit and if it was any other time, he would’ve found him extremely adorable.

Unfortunately, this time isn’t like any other time. He knows— he exactly knows what’s going through Soonyoung’s mind.

“I know you know that I know that you’ve read my mind.” Soonyoung speaks up, voice lacing with mischief and sudden intelligence.

“I know you know I know that you know that I’ve read your mind.” The older eagerly nods, his fingers are drumming against the plastic table with excitement.

Seokmin is now the one with his head dropped on the table as he grumbles out a droned, “Noooooo.” Which, overlaps Soonyoung’s triumphant tone of: “Come on, Seokmin!”

He sits straight back up, his hat stays grounded on the said same table and reveals his jet black hair standing up in every other direction.

“You always cheat whenever we play chopsticks!” Seokmin accuses and he earns himself another string of complaint.

“I do not!”

“You do!”

“Do not!”

“Do to!”

“Do no—” Seokmin has a disapproving, sullen look washes over his face and Soonyoung gives in, not liking the fact that he’s the sole cause of it. “Okay, I do.”

Soonyoung is quick to defend himself when Seokmin opens his mouth to retort. “But it’s only because you’re bad at it, I’ve never cheated at Super Mario, I swear!”

“That’s because you can’t.”

It’s true. Seokmin wouldn’t have known Soonyoung was, and still is, as bad as him at chopsticks if it wasn’t for Mingyu oh-so casually pointing it out while passing by, slurping his cup of ramen days ago. And Soonyoung is just that bad at anything Mario related, no explanatory needed.

Soonyoung frowns. “Whatever. Just play with me, just once, I won’t cheat!”

At this point, he’s already leaning across the table, much closer to Seokmin and is practically forcing the younger to play with him with that look Soonyoung knows, Seokmin wouldn’t be able to say no.

Seokmin has long gone discarded his glum-self and twitches Soonyoung’s frown upside down with his forefingers. “Lose the frown, hyung. You won’t look as cute if you don’t.”

Soonyoung wears a timid smile, a rare occasion where he’d get flustered.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a ye— wait,”

Seokmin urgently stands up, surprising both Soonyoung and himself as he scrunches his nose, sniffing the air. Soonyoung settles back down on his chair and looks at the younger whipping around, kind of resembling a police dog on a narcotic duty.

“Do you smell something burning?”

Soonyoung stares at him. “Are you trying to get me to use that one meme—” then his eyes double in size, “—crap, something’s burning.”

It’s like they’re trying to decode everything that’s happening and for a moment, the smell of smoke is briefly forgotten.

And the sound of Soonyoung’s stomach grumbling makes them jump in realization.

“The rice.”

 

 

“Oh god! Fire! Soonyoung hyung, there’s fire!”

Seokmin stumbles, backing away from the burning pan and Soonyoung who’s behind him, hits his head against Seokmin’s by accident.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god, what should we do, Mingyu’s going to kill us!”

By now, Soonyoung’s sure he’s going to have a throbbing headache judging by the way Seokmin feverishly shaking his entire body.

Seokmin gasps, albeit dramatically with his mouth agape, and sandwiches Soonyoung’s cheeks. “Hyung! Why aren’t you panicking?”

“I am panicking! Can’t you see that I’m panicking, I’m panicking!” Soonyoung wails and clutches onto Seokmin’s coat. “I’m going to die young by my roommate’s hand!”

They stand by the door, not making any move closer to the fire.

Actually, the fire is barely seen, it’s just there on top of the flat out rice, chopped carrots, and tomatoes. Kind of like a growing seed.

 

 

“Okay, we can fix this.” Soonyoung snuffles. “How do we fix this?”

Seokmin blinks and just stares at Soonyoung. He honestly doesn’t know but if there’s one thing that beats fire, “With water?”

“Water.” Soonyoung echoes.

He shuffles past Seokmin and comes back seconds later with the latter’s chef’s hat in hand. Turning on the sink, Soonyoung places the hat under it and let water filling it up while Seokmin has a look of terror on his face.

Soonyoung’s heart rate has calmed down a bit. Maybe water will fix this.

Soonyoung steps in front of the stove with his hands full and if you listen closely, there’s a faint whimpering from Seokmin and a quiet, “I can’t look at this.”

After a moment, a bawl is heard and Seokmin turns his head to see Soonyoung sprawled on the narrow ground, looking extremely dazed and oh, would you look at that, the fire has spread like wildfire and—

“My hat!”

 

 

Seokmin rushes to Soonyoung side, immediately helping the older getting back on his feet and he latched himself onto Seokmin’s side.

“I’m glad to have known you, Seokmin. It was a good life.” Soonyoung speaks as if this is their final goodbye.

“Don’t say that, hyung! We’ll live through this, I know we will.” Seokmin nods his head with certainty, an arm curled around Soonyoung’s waist.

As if on cue, the fire sprinkler turns on and before they know it, it’s a downpour all over the kitchen.

Seokmin has a big smile, relieved that the fire has been put out. It really was just a passing worry, and Soonyoung has a scowl drenched on his face.

“I can’t believe the fire played favor. Rude.”

Seokmin squeezes Soonyoung’s size faintly. “Wanna play chopsticks?”

It’s a mere suggestion to get Soonyoung’s mood back up. And Soonyoung grins, instantly happy. It’s really that easy to cheer the older up. “But let’s clean up first. We don’t want Mingyu coming home to this.”

 

 

And maybe, most likely, very, very likely the universe has had enough with their shits because just when they’re about to dump the now awfully scorched rice along with its dishes, the front door opens, revealing a gleeful Mingyu.

“I’m home! What did you guys...” The grin he has on immediately straightens and his shoulders slouch down. “...do?”

Soonyoung and Seokmin, in their damped clothes and droplets of water dripping everywhere, are crouched over a small trash bin in the far corner with what it seems to be, a full bowl of tarnished food.

Both of them turn towards Mingyu, still in the same position with matching wary, quivering grins.

 

 

It’s quiet like this for a few dreading moments before sounds of pacing footsteps joined in and the panting that comes later. 

“Hey, Gyu, you forgot your— this, just take it.”

Mingyu pays no attention to Wonwoo, who’s obviously exhausted and extremely out of breath from the extensive running he’s done and keeps blankly staring at his roommates.

Only then does Wonwoo look up from resting his weight on his kneecaps, analyzing the mess with widened eyes and a concern glance thrown into Mingyu’s direction.

“Uhm, we—” Seokmin starts to explain but clasps his mouth close when Wonwoo puts up a hand.

“Don’t. I’ll take Mingyu somewhere and let you guys finish with... all of this.” Wonwoo drapes an arm over a worn out looking Mingyu and gives the two a tight smile. 

Now he knows why Mingyu gets so worked up every time.

Once the pair are out the door again; “Hyung, let me move in with you for awhile— you know what, let me move in with you for the rest of my life.” Soonyoung overhears, and he gives Seokmin a knowing look.

“So... McDonald’s?” Seokmin asks expectantly.  
“McDonald’s.”

And the sound of cluttering is heard before they head their way out, letting the sun dry their clothes and happily hand-in-hand to an unexpected date. They’ll just hire a cleaning lady tomorrow.


End file.
